Most of the low-carb crowd does their damnedest to behave themselves, and they encourage each other to stick to the straight and narrow. They carry real butter to the cooking stations and ask the dining-room and kitchen staffs to please only use fresh real eggs -- none of that stuff that comes in cartons! They ask what's in the sauces, and make sure the waiter doesn't come near the table with the bread-basket.
Who would expect a cruise ship -- epitome of self-indulgence and non-stop partying -- to be a kind of boot-camp for the food-serious? ...But it IS.
Our family was fortunately at our own table -- we would have been a HORRIBLE influence! ;-) Of course, it doesn't matter -- those people are hard-core. They work REALLY hard to do it right. Ya know how the young primals who hang out at the gym sneer at all those old, fat, middle-aged, red-faced, wind-broken "losers"? No way on god's earth are the former as mentally strong or as full of character as most of the low-carb cruisers i saw!
We're talking about people with a history of serious illness, of decades of struggling with overweight by doing exactly what EVERYONE told them was how to be fit and healthy ... you know, the low-fat LIES we grew up and grew old with!
There were several young families, too -- slim, vibrant people with bright-eyed, nice, smart kids. There were quite a few folks who look quite young until you get close to them; more than one of the speakers looked like "babies" from a distance, but their intelligence and experience shine out along with the faint sheen of silver in their hair....
I and my husband are, in fact, very poor representatives of this community. We drink, we indulge in
"evil" goodies (we consider the brakes off, in holiday situations like this) -- we misbehave outrageously! Our hats are off, though, to our "colleagues" who are so dedicated to their lifestyles and goals even during what may be a trip-of-a-lifetime to them!
I am trying to imagine people walking around with personal sticks of butter in their pockets and I can't help but smile. I keep an emergency bar of dark chocolate in my bag just in case. Crazy low carbs. Must be glucose deficiency ;)
ReplyDeleteLol -- yep, glucose deficiency.... It causes clear thinking!
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ReplyDeleteWelcome back on the solid ground, Tess! The main thing - you had fan with your family.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Galina -- we sure did!
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DeleteIf you can misbehave outrageously, and get away with it, I reckon it probably increases life expectancy.
ReplyDeleteOr something like that.
I imagine there's a trade off somewhere.
Glad to hear you had a good trip.
thanks, Mr Chips! :-) got back home at about 11:00 pm and BOY was Spenser happy! (he and the canary were taken-care-of by dog-sitters who texted pictures and left a "diary") "tired but happy" I believe is the conventional description!
DeleteWelcome Back, pleased to hear you had a great trip
ReplyDeleteAll the best Jan and Eddie
thank you! much as I enjoyed it, it's always nice to be home again....
DeleteI ate at the too abandon buffet during my stay with my mom at a Turkish resort. It was very easy to eat according to my diet, no hard work - just skip on pastry, sweets and grains. They had amazing variety of vegetables, lamb was always available, cooking was done with olive oils, only normal eggs were used. They didn't have any standard in US dressings for salads, just olive oil and vinegar.
ReplyDeletethat sounds wonderful! unfortunately, American-style buffet foods are LOADED with deleterious ingredients, even if they COULD be made with more nutritious ones. :-( I could tell the food was all full of MSG. there was sometimes sushi, but it was mostly rice. even the roast beef wasn't "natural"-- which is just incomprehensible! why do they have to mess up perfection???
DeleteI see the analogical situation in a photography. With the arrival of Photoshop (it is a wonderful tool, no doubt about it) many images, especially of the nature, especially a sky with clouds look artificially beautiful to the point that it is unpleasant to look at. MSG is overused way too often, and many people got used to it.
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